It's basically a free midlife MOT. It can help you spot upcoming heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, stroke and other health problems.

If you're aged 40-74 and don't already have a diagnosis for one of these conditions, you should have an NHS health check.

What happens?

It takes about 20 minutes. The health professional - usually a nurse - will ask you some simple questions, measure and weigh you, take your blood pressure and probably a small prick of blood from your finger. Based on this, they will be able to give you an idea of your risk of several serious diseases: heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and type 2 diabetes.

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The Health check is not like an MOT. There is no pass or fail. It only looks at risk and everyone has risk. There are many reasons not to have a health check including being treated for something that may never happen (e.g. Statins). It is a personal choice and NHS fails to advise attendees of the adverse nature of treatments. The majority of health checks are NOT carried out by a nurse or a doctor but a 'health professional' who usually has very basic knowledge of health. You can get most of the risk information from home tests and home calculators. You should also read about the generalistions of screeing like this and the inbuilt inaccuracies or results. There is no evidence the NHS Health Check saves lives or reduces harms - just assumptions from NHS England (They do not waste money on Health Checks in Wales, NI, or Scotland or any other country)